Diablo 4 hands-on preview: It's a dark, dark world
Diablo 4 has been a long time coming, as Blizzard has tried to right past wrongs by taking its sweet time and making sure it's fully ready before bringing it to the masses.
As part of that slow-boil process, we've just had the first of two weekends of early access for pre-orderers and series fans — and we've played through Act 1 of what looks like it'll be a seriously chunky game. Here are our thoughts so far.
Brilliant beta
Diablo 4 looks like it could be utterly compelling when it comes out later this year, and a dozen hours with its beta has us champing at the bit.
Diablo's story can be about as simple or as complicated as you like — depending on your inclination, it's either a sprawling tale of human greed and demonic insurrection or a skip-the-dialogue shortcut with very, very cool cutscenes.
The good news is that if you're not up to date on which demonic princes and powers have been vanquished in games gone by and which are still very much out there, even if potentially trapped in soulstones, Diablo 4 doesn't require any foreknowledge.
It quickly establishes, through an unbelievably gorgeous opening cinematic, that there's a new baddie in the world of Sanctuary — Lilith, daughter of Mephisto and an all-around bad egg.
She's come back thanks to a pesky ritual and is here to do absolutely no good whatsoever, so it's up to your player character to stop her, with the help of an assortment of variously doomed side characters.
The open beta lets you play through the game's first act and explore its first major area, a sizeable slice of content that has you meeting a few principal cast members and working out just what Lilith is up to.
On the technical side, this storytelling is much-improved thanks to a higher frequency
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